Awesome! Shiny! NEW!!!

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  Awesome! Shiny! NEW!!!

Inspiration

This project was born from a desire to merge underground club aesthetics with cinematic storytelling. The visual style was heavily inspired by DJ Turn, the originator of the microgenre HI–chop house, whose work blends rhythmic fragmentation with surreal texture.

At its core, the project explores a future shaped by commercialism, industrialization, and robotics — where everything, even emotion, becomes a commodity.

What It Does

Awesome! Shiny! NEW!!! is built around the sonic and visual language of HI–Chop house — a microgenre rooted in underground house music, characterized by HI-NRG synths, creatively timed vocal chops, and rhythmic fragmentation.

The video blends photorealistic footage with bursts of stylized animation — mostly anime-inspired — cut in rapidly to create emotional contrast and visual dissonance. This mix of reality and animation heightens the surreal tone and mirrors the genre’s layered pacing. Beneath the surface, it delivers a commentary on hyper-consumerism and the mechanization of identity — where even beauty and chaos are algorithmically packaged.

How We Built It

I built this entirely solo. Most of the visuals were generated using OpenArt AI and some edits using digital art platforms like Photoshop. The video sequences were crafted using OpenArt AI and Runway ML, allowing for layered, stylized motion and texture.

The music was composed by DJ Turn, whose HI–Chop house style shaped the entire rhythm and visual pacing. The vocal style emerged by accident — experimenting with chopped up female vocal samples and reversed fragments, which unexpectedly resembled the cadence of East Asian pop vocals. That led to intentionally layer in Chinese and Korean language samples, creating a hybrid texture that felt both synthetic and emotional.

Because this was our second music video, I pushed the visual density even further — using two to three times as many scenes as a typical music video to match the chopped-up rhythm and high-speed energy of HI–Chop house. The result is a hyper-fragmented visual experience.

Challenges We Ran Into

Working alone meant every decision — creative, technical, emotional — fell on me. The biggest challenge was maintaining momentum without external feedback. I also struggled with rendering issues, managing file sizes, and syncing visual effects to the beat without losing clarity or emotional pacing.

Another major challenge was adapting the original length of the video to meet social media standards for short films — which meant aggressively chopping down the runtime while preserving the emotional arc and visual intensity.

Accomplishments That We're Proud Of

I’m proud of how the pacing and visual density came together. The project has started picking up followers, which is exciting and affirming. It means the work is resonating with people who appreciate a new microgenre for Electronic Music.

What We Learned

How to use AI tools not as shortcuts, but as collaborators — especially for timing, texture, and mood. Always a challenge — getting the AI tools to do what exactly what I want as they often misinterpreted prompts or produce results that are wildly off. I often have to come up with a creative alternative. Lip sync is still a problem: I don't know if it's a language issue, but it is difficult to match dialogue in a realistic way. Another challenge was editing — many tools are either missing key features or have steep learning curves, which slowed down the creative process and always makes refinement harder than expected. Managing AI credits was a challenge with this project since there are so many videos and images generated for the videos.

What's Next

We are in the middle of production for two more DJ Turn music videos. The next drop is already in motion.

Genre Definition: HI–chop house

HI–chop house is a microgenre of underground electronic music defined by HI-NRG synths, creatively timed vocal chops, and rhythmic fragmentation. While it often leans into intensity and speed, it can also carry moments of melancholy. The genre draws from underground house textures and thrives on emotional contrast, sonic layering, and unexpected pacing.

Built With

• openart
• runway